Wiktionary
n. Determining plausibility based on a set of evidence.
Wikipedia
Abductive reasoning (also called abduction,* Magnani, L. "Abduction, Reason, and Science: Processes of Discovery and Explanation". Kluwer Academic Plenum Publishers, New York, 2001. xvii. 205 pages. Hard cover, ISBN 0-306-46514-0.
- R. Josephson, J. & G. Josephson, S. "Abductive Inference: Computation, Philosophy, Technology" Cambridge University Press, New York & Cambridge (U.K.). viii. 306 pages. Hard cover (1994), ISBN 0-521-43461-0, Paperback (1996), ISBN 0-521-57545-1.
- Bunt, H. & Black, W. "Abduction, Belief and Context in Dialogue: Studies in Computational Pragmatics" (Natural Language Processing, 1.) John Benjamins, Amsterdam & Philadelphia, 2000. vi. 471 pages. Hard cover, ISBN 90-272-4983-0 (Europe), 1-58619-794-2 (U.S.)
abductive inference or retroduction) is a form of logical inference which goes from an observation to a theory which accounts for the observation, ideally seeking to find the simplest and most likely explanation. In abductive reasoning, unlike in deductive reasoning, the premises do not guarantee the conclusion. One can understand abductive reasoning as "inference to the best explanation".
The fields of law, computer science, and artificial intelligence research renewed interest in the subject of abduction. Diagnostic expert systems frequently employ abduction.